I will preface this with the fact that I am not the target audience. I read this because I didn’t read it as a child, and it definitely would have been better if I read it when I was one. 

It was certainly adventurous, and it was shown through the eyes of a child. The awful aunts were awful because they were mean and of course they were also ugly (that’s how you can tell if someone is the villain). Everything was hyperbolic, and for a kid, that is probably great. As an adult, it was hard to push through. 

I didn’t feel like James had any personality. He was the only one who could come up with ideas to save them from certain death many times, but that was about it. The creatures in the Peach had more personality than he did, in my opinion.